Addictive Predictive

I have one fundamental objection to AI.

I object to my neurons being fired on my behalf by an automated programme. What amazes me when I read or listen to the lyrics of a song or view an artwork or attend a theatrical performance is the spontaneity and the synchronicity of what I think and feel. Sparks flying from the clash of unexpected confrontations within the mind of another human being, encountering mine through an artistic medium.

Lateral thinking is a superpower. And it is wholly original, in the way it operates. What Dr. Samuel Johnson called ‘Conceits’ (‘the most heterogeneous ideas, yoked by violence together’) is to me one of the great ‘Pleasures Of The Text’. My mind, making patterns, solving problems not mechanically, but through the magic infusions of second nature: practice, making perfect; ecstatic alignment; the aesthetic pleasure of innate intellect and creativity in play. It is discovery of the intrinsic self, interacting with the world, in alignment and in counterpoint, each transforming the other. Dr. Johnson called this ‘violent’ - but what is the alternative? Blandsville?

Now that everyday life has become so surreal, it feels important to create things that are authentic, unique and sourced from the core of oneself. New territory is being discovered within. I don’t know if others feel this alongside me.

I got the feeling that the world was getting too generic, some time ago.

And I know all this mass production around us is because there are so many people all alive at the same time. So advertisers and marketers divide us all into categories, based on what data analysts call the algorithms of our preferences. Every time we like, comment or heart something on FB or Insta, we are being tracked. But it is not because they want to know us, or connect in any real way. Their messages are individualized, and we are hailed by our actual names. But it is more like surveillance. It is our profile they want, not who we really are.

It’s an Orwellian horror scenario, for any creative individualist, where ‘Nothing is your own but the thirteen cubic centimetres inside your skull.’ Even as I quote this brilliant observation from George Orwell’s novel 1984, the quote is being autocorrected to American spelling. My irreparable fertile ecosystem is being leached. Is AI part of a system which is painting for us a ‘picture of the future … a boot stamping on a human face forever’? I recall Aldous Huxley in Brave New World, written a century ago, showing the ‘Principles of mass production, at last applied to biology.’

It’s very unnerving, the way we embrace the predictive mechanisms of AI, and put our brains and phrase making skills on autopilot and in default mode. It becomes addictive, giving our power away. Slouching on the couch, instead of journeying in the wild lands outside our door. Picking the low hanging fruit, instead of the ones closest to the sun, at the Tree Of Life’s crown.

And so I want to start making my own specific emojis. I am getting training, from digital art experts, but in the meantime I have started using the ones which are already available, arranging them in varied sequences that no one has seen before.

It is only recently that there are different coloured ones, and a range of skin tones to choose from. We have come late to inclusivity. Like a self-referential supermarket. Pick the one that best matches you. Or three tones lighter, if you think that is the version that you think is closer to the real you. But you think of yourself framed by what you are offered, and the image of yourself as a recipient of the mass production methods which flatten our responses.

But everything on offer feels flattened out, and pre-designed. Smooth, you know. Pre-fitted. And not by you, and not for you. So you are outside it all, the structures which were made by other people. A spectator of the world you live in: a passive observer of bill boards and news presenters and MCs and important people in government and on the media who do not look like you. Fit in or be shut out. Replication and iteration of pre-decided normatives. Messages passing through you without any additions or enrichments from you.

When you are just a kid, it doesn't matter at first, because the world is just the people at home and at school, and on television. It's when you start to leave home, get a holiday job, meet other people, that you see and feel the differences. People might say you are a real outlier - someone who is not on the Bell Curve. It’s a compliment.

It felt like there was too much inside, growing up. A whole lot of raw, unprocessed stuff. And very little of it was acceptable, to discuss in public. It had to be put through a process. Like a machine, made digestible and comprehensible with sharp blades. But what comes through that is not unique or special.

All these processes make us compliant.

So I grew up, observing. All the smooth operators, all created from Styrofoam, with no personal stake in anything. Nothing sharp or edgy at all. Just a sort of dimly glimmering trail, to show their progression.

This is what being invisible is like. And it happens, when you grow up in a country where hardly anyone looks like you. Yet, if one was part of the majority, would that not be only another form of invisibility?

That is why I observe a lot of outsiders, and members of ethnic minority groups, becoming such colourful personalities. Just to protest against their own co-operation with invisibility. All the bright-coloured clothes and accessories. All the assertive statements. Operating in a category pre-marked 'controversy'. And of course it is a matter of time before values clash. If you are encouraged to speak up, be careful what you say. It may offend those who represent and uphold the majority opinion. You only know what an outlier you are when the wagons circle to shut you out.

You are called 'exotic', because of the big dark eyes and the long dark hair. But. What happens if you don't actually want to be predictably controversial? Or assertive? Or colourful? Is there an emoji for normalcy, that is not made for you, by someone who does not really know you?

People make assumptions. And they do that because everything is designed with stereotypes in mind. And we all react according to how people fit into those prefabricated patterns. So it's a sort of mid-air collision of things we assume about each other, as we do so many things in a hurry these days. Easier to buy things ready-made.

Knowing that, feeling all these choices out there, not representing what I discern within, swirling around, ubiquitously off the mark, is what caused me to decide to create my own emojis. Create my own persona, piece by real piece. A work in progress, resonant, synthesised.

Fact check, you know. Be careful, with every word and picture you put out there: everything you say should be you. And every unique utterance changes the whole world a little, and makes it more and more real. Our creative expression is being diminished by the answers of AI. We need to resist this, and expand the range of feelings we experience, and give our readers access to this more intense and variegated experience, in our work.



Basing these ideas on my teaching practice over twenty years, I tested the idea of non-artificial intelligence through teaching analysis and interpretation of literary texts. Because our responses to what we read should be unique and not programmed by how well we comply with external prompts and cues. Standardised testing is crowd control and anathema.

I have never understood why people complain that they lose their grasp of the value of a text by analysing it! Analysis done creatively constructs meaning, rather than demolishes or diminishes it. Interpretation is essentially a creative activity, the reader’s analytical perception collaborating in the creation of meaning with the creator.

‘Constructive Criticism’ is what I call this approach. Critical thinking is a powerful form of creative expression. Ideally, it should encompass three Quotients: IQ, EQ and MQ. Interpretation of language and literary texts is a fusion of thought and feeling. We read or view a piece of writing or a visual text and it impacts our mind and imagination via our senses. And it asks us to think about how we and others live and move in the world. When asked, what does this text mean to us? What impact does it have on us? Does it make me change my view of other human beings? - this is working outwards from our interior grasp of the way the text makes land on us, like a breeze or like a storm. Measuring our intelligence, our emotion, and our moral capacity.

Analysis asks: why does this text impact me this way? What is the creator’s intention? What methods and techniques does s/he use to achieve his/her aim? Is the correlation between aim and method strong? We can measure the effectiveness of the text by the strength of that correlation.


Credit: healthline.com

Left and right brain work together. Logic and rhetoric work together. Clenched fist and open hand. Assertion and persuasion. Hard and soft. The best critical analysis is creative. The best interpretation is a collaboration between the creator and the responder: a living interaction, and always in the present.

It is organic. The process can be systematic, sequential and strategic. But it spontaneously evolves into something more than its constituent parts - there is always an element of emergence, of astonishment and surprise. Something is found, something is discovered - something unexpected. Something is created which did not previously exist! It is the opposite of the predictability of AI.

This is because each reader/viewer brings a unique experiential perspective to the artwork. And even in one person’s lifetime, they see and think and evaluate differently according to their own evolution.

If we make an equation out of it, we could say: Meaning = Objective Content of Text x Reader’s Consciousness

In this equation, ‘Meaning’ is Variable (V) and ‘Objective Content of Text’ is Constant (C). The Meaning changes because the ‘Reader’s Consciousness’ is Variable (V) [N.B. This equation is copyright to my original teaching materials (c) Devika Brendon]

So the act of criticism is essentially creative. Its outcome changes with greater understanding and awareness on the part of the responder. They see more in the same text, and the text is no longer what it was before. And the process of creativecritical engagement makes them more than they were before. It increases their capacity. They bring more to the next reading - not only of this text but to all other texts. And thereby they gain more. It’s a never-ending cycle of creativecritical engagement which enhances our lives!

Some students are frustrated by this, with its inevitable, inbuilt growth trajectory. Those most frustrated are those who succeed best at standardized tests.

Automation, while it removes unnecessary drudgery of the ‘reinventing the wheel’ variety, takes away the excitement and the risk of making things work, with one’s bare hands. As Toril Moi once pointed out in an unpredictable Q and A session in Australia in the early 1990s, there is intense pleasure in exercising our intellect, creatively, making connections that were not mapped out for us.

The world is being curated for us, in a quest to privilege convenience over experience. First contact with anything is messy, but real. We shape it with our assumptions and biases, and try to control it, but some part of the encounter escapes our preferences. We cannot be wholly auto corrected, and we should rejoice in the ways we cannot be accurately predicted.

Predictives restrict us, and make us lazy. We choose the neural pathways of least resistance, the roads most travelled, worn down, overused; and the empty, efficient superhighways, especially when we are overwhelmed with too much choice or infotainment. We choose only from what is available: shallow choices and threadbare phrases. We starve ourselves of essential nutrition for our imagination, through these bad choices. And that deficit impoverishes us, and depletes the energy of our writing.

We are not marionettes or mass-produced blow-up dolls. One size should not fit us. Think of musicians, interpreting well known music, or doing cover versions of famous songs. Masterpieces are not painted by numbers. Without the unique infusion of the artist’s sensibility, the rubato, the expressive freedom, the interpretation lacks transformative capacity, and fails to add value or spark joy. As Robert Lowell tells us in his poem Epilogue ‘The painter’s vision is not a lens, it trembles to caress the light’. [Source: Day by Day (1977)]

I want unpredictive text. And real feeling. Both in me and in my response to the real expression of other’s true feelings. I will save convenience mechanisms for mundane tasks. But even they can be made meaningful, with the level of consciousness we bring to them.

A friend of mine recently moved into a Smart Home. She stands in her kitchen and utters commands to the mechanisms which are programmed to synthesise the functions of the home to her specifications. But her commands have to be pitched at the correct volume and expressed in a pattern the digital responder understands. And she still has to work out how to use the temperature regulation commands to attune her environment to her needs.

No blanket response will cover what is needed, here. It is the powerful feeling that is needed, and the spontaneous overflow, which can neither be measured nor predicted: energy created should not ever be dumbed down, diminished or destroyed.

We need to cure ourselves of our addiction to predictives. The remedy is to shear away what is threadbare in our own thinking. It takes practice. And conscious re-evaluation. But you gradually get back on the creative path that is specific to you: offline but centred, and increasingly on track, in a reclaimed and vibrantly imaginative landscape.

Out of Order

Everyone suffers loss. Yet our society, while focusing on the external cultural rituals associated with loss, has a lack of awareness of the suffering of those left to survive. This results in callous insensitivity towards those grieving, which increases their pain. The insensitivity and lack of empathy is usually the result of ignorance, but is also a consequence of the chronic trauma suffered by many in this society in a post-war context.  Resilience is praised, and pain is suppressed, and stoicism is praised, and people are shamed for being vulnerable. People have suffered so much for so long and without any support or understanding, that they lack the band width to acknowledge the pain of others. 

How can any one person’s grief be more than another’s? Yet that is the initial message of traumatic loss: that your grief is the worst in the world, the worst thing you have ever so far experienced, and you have to struggle to survive it, and endure it. It is no less than anyone else’s grief. Perspective and understanding that this is a collective trauma that we all go through comes much later. Don’t expect to fit this searing chaos into a neat frame at first. 

Those of us who have lost loved ones, particularly suddenly, often experience our blood pressure shooting up, insomnia and panic attacks. Many people constantly dream of dying themselves, and can become excessively fearful and overcautious in everyday life. Our anxieties rise to the surface, and life can feel surreal. It’s a trauma response. 

We can feel over-reactions to everyday events. These take a lot of energy, and can exhaust us. 

We feel out of order, out of control, and that our life is unravelling. We can be prone to infection, sudden accidents, and fits of clumsiness and awkward misalignments. We can be verbally abrupt or brusque when we are normally polite, graceful and socially attuned. We feel like an ‘Out Of Order’ sign should be put on our house and car and on our bodies, as a sign to others that essential repair and maintenance is going on. My aim in writing this piece is to say that this ‘Out Of Order’ sign should read ‘Temporarily Out Of Order’. Because the first anguish of crisis does pass, and some order does return as your system gradually gets restored. It will not be the same as it was, though. And you will not be the same person. It’s a new era of your life, this raw transitional time, during which you will increasingly incorporate the loss you are currently experiencing.

Unexpected loss of a loved one is high in the list of human devastations, and also in the Top 5 are loss of a partner through death or divorce or betrayal, economic loss and loss of income and social status through suddenly losing your job, or investments, loss of mental and psychosocial equilibrium as a result of terrible shock, through natural disaster, war or pandemic, and loss of your bodily autonomy through sudden illness or accident, or rape or assault.

What all these traumatic events have in common is the shock, and the blow to our actual survival, not just our sense of being able to survive. Chronic illness is not on this list because we can adjust to it and learn to manage it over time. When loss comes in the form of ‘out-of-order death’, it’s like a home invasion of the most violent kind. It’s like the roof has been pulled off the place where you live, and the walls blasted. What you are faced with is your foundation, which feels under profound attack.

What sheltered you is under threat. And you don’t feel safe anymore. Because we found solace and shelter in the existence and presence of our loved ones, in shared experiences and conversations and memories. And when they die suddenly, and our wounded hearts and minds try to accept this abrupt ending to what we thought would continue for years to come, it is a flash flood of anguish.

My first advice is to be your own first responder. Identify this as a huge crisis, and immediately act to support yourself physically.


Secondly, seek to establish continuity in your daily life. A simple routine, incorporating basic self care and essential activities, is reassuring to your parasympathetic nervous system. Try to do certain things at the same time every day for several weeks. This sends a message to your whole being that you are caring for yourself.

Thirdly, when you feel ready, after the administrative aspects of the loss are dealt with, start to go through the photos and letters and make an album or a collage - several if you need to - to document their life and the memories you have of them.

Fourthly, sort out their clothes and personal possessions. Think through how they would like these items dealt with. This is very hard to do, and it has taken my family 4 years to do this in relation to my brother. It takes the time it takes. Don’t rush it, because it’s an important part of acceptance of your loss. Some family members might like to be given certain items of clothing or special things to remember the loved one by. These can be personal items like belts, ties or watches. It can be very comforting to wear these items and feel connected to the person whose physical presence you have lost.

Fifthly, if you need to withdraw socially from your usual life, do so, while remaining in contact with those you trust. Seek professional counselling if you want to, especially in the early stages of your loss, to help establish a conscious routine which can assist in your healing and progress. Reduce the presence of unwanted and unnecessary stress in your life. Gently exclude all people and situations which create drama or pressure that you don’t want to deal with. Create space for yourself to take the time you need to grieve.

Keep in mind that in olden days, people used to formally recognise a period of mourning, at least a year, where they refrained from attending big social gatherings and wore dark clothes, and did not indulge in alcohol or participate in festive occasions. Parts of our beings shut down in the face of loss, and we do not have the energy to put ourselves ‘out there’ in the social round. But cutting off from everyone is not healthy either. So find your balance with this, and realise that your openness to joy has had a severe blow, and it will take time to feel pure, sustained happiness again. You may even feel guilt for being alive, when your loved one has suddenly passed, or not want to do things you used to do together or go to places which remind you of them because the pain of loss is too sharp. But you can gradually try to extend these limits as time goes on.

These days, there are some really valuable resources for dealing with grief available on the internet via Instagram and Facebook and YouTube. Four great Instagram pages are: @refugeingrief, @lifedeathwhat, @untanglegrief and @spokengrief.

And there are many others. Books on grief and trauma can help, if you can concentrate for short periods of time. Podcasts are very good resources, if listening to people speak is better for you than reading words, at this time. YouTube videos and guided meditations such as the Gratitude Meditation created by Oprah and Deepak Chopra are helpful as part of a daily routine. The 21 Day Meditations they provide help you track your progress, and focus on what you have, to help deal with what you have lost. 21 days is enough to form a helpful habit.

The Hundred Days Of Happiness Challenge is a good activity to do with close friends, via WhatsApp. It just means you and your friends encourage each other to focus on positive events however small in each day, by sharing a text or image with each other with a brief comment. This enables you to track your own progress, and keep connected with those who care about you and wish you well. I am now in my 4th set of 100 Days, and have found it very helpful in keeping me buoyant and moving forward.

Be aware that just as your body rushes to send healing energy to the areas of pain when you are physically wounded, so your mind and heart are also needing recalibration and healing to restore your equilibrium. Many people find it hard to sleep after suffering traumatic loss, and emotional dysregulation can result from chronic anxiety and bouts of grief and anguish. It is normal to experience memory loss or difficulty in focus and concentration. Do what you do when your body finds it hard to digest food: have small amounts of nutritious food a few times a day and pace yourself. Recognise that your being wants to heal itself, and do all you can to support this process.

Because it is a process. We are sensitive beings, and a loss although it takes place once in physical time is not a one off incident. This loss may stir memories of previous times of grief and shock, and you need to support yourself through this time, in awareness of this complex fusion of past and present, with anxiety of the future.

Please be kind to yourself. And please do reach out for help from skilled and caring professionals and those friends who are inside the parameters of your new landscape because they have empathy and experience. Grief makes us profoundly sensitive, so be careful with who you allow close to you at this time.

The pain we feel in the present is part of the joy of loving and being loved by the people we have lost. Gradually, our life path evolves to incorporate this truth, but it is a unique journey, personal to each of us. Accepting this is part of respecting what all human beings go through, and tremendous empathy, growth and creativity results from this acceptance.

Attention Deficit

Everyone in the world seems to be being diagnosed with ADHD, these days. The term itself is apparently a misnomer: Attention Deficit Disorder was first called that because school children were finding it difficult to pay attention in class. So they were judged to be ‘inattentive’, and ‘easily distracted’, in contrast to their more attentive peers, who focused on the teacher and the subject at hand and were able to deal more effectively with the school system. 

The ‘H’ stands for ‘Hyperactivity’. As we see, both the terms ‘Deficit’ and ‘Hyper’ frame the condition in a negative and judgmental way. We experience deficits in time, in money, in sleep, in nutrition, and in any area in which we need positive input for optimal health and happiness and a feeling of well-being and security, where not having these things can lead to a loss for us, and an increase in discomfort and suffering. And ironically, although we have generated great abundance in material ways, our society and lifestyle also creates deficits in the way we feel. 

There is a lot of information about ADHD available on the internet. And I find that appropriate, because in my opinion, it is the onset of technology that has caused this noticeable spike in the numbers of people who are being diagnosed with this condition. 

Look at the most common symptoms: 

• Impulsiveness 

• Problems with prioritizing tasks 

• Difficulty with time management 

• Trouble with multitasking 

• Paralyzing stress regarding meeting deadlines 

• Restlessness and hyper-activity 

• Difficulty planning in sequential ways and creating and sustaining a routine 

• Inability to tolerate frustration/delay 

• Volatile, easily-triggered temper 

• Emotional fluctuations

• Interrupting oneself or others while speaking so train of thought is lost 

• Difficulty in consistency, follow up and follow through 

• Intense difficulty with stress management 

• Chaotic actions described as spontaneity 

• Lack of forethought and preparation 

They all add up to give a picture of an overwhelmed person: someone whose capacity to take in and process the information that they are being expected to take in is being stretched too far. Someone who is under siege, and experiencing a high volume of incoming prompts and bids for their attention. 

Our nervous system is exactly like an electrical system that burns out because it is experiencing surges and extreme variations that it is not built to handle. This is why we use machine terms to explain it: burnout, surges, flare ups, breakdowns. 

Why do we feel subjected to this ongoing tsunami of information? Why is it called a super highway? Why are we being rushed and flooded and overtaxed? Why is our lifestyle crippling our health and our happiness? 

The volume of information, the cacophony of opinion, the tables of statistics and data, the words and numbers, are all part of living and working in a technologised world. The pressure to keep up, to stay tuned, to keep engaged, to remain in the loop, to respond in a timely way, to perform to expectations, is immense. 

The remedy for it is not only to take non digital access (‘detox’) holidays where you deliberately go off the grid and detach from all phones, tablets and electronic devices. That’s a ‘quick fix’. The lifelong remedy is to pace yourself, and decide when and where and how you want to engage with the electronic world. 

Think about it. Why is multi-tasking praised? And by whom? 

Why is faster, better? Why is productivity prized above quality? Where is the pleasure of engaging in any activity involving our minds, hearts and imaginations able to be present, in such a fast-paced world? 

The remedy for this is stillness. Slowness. The ability to pace oneself. Slow cooking. Taking time out. 

The single biggest symptom of ADHD - distractability, volatility, impulsiveness, forgetfulness, a mind that jumps from one idea to another, the inability to finish one activity before moving to another, interrupting others when they are speaking, or not finishing our own sentences, is greatly intensified by our giving our attention to rapacious ongoing instruments of technology. These technological instruments know no limits, so we must - for the sake of our own sanity - learn to impose them. 

Digital detoxes are called detoxes specifically because the toxicity around digital usage builds incrementally into unacceptable overwhelm. 

The machines alert us. They notify us. They prompt us. They demand our instant attention. We have to turn off our phones in order not to be disturbed. We therefore only give part of our attention to what we are doing, and the person with whom we are speaking. Some people have two or more phones. Different ring tones to alert them to who is calling. To protect ourselves from unwanted harassment, we have to lock our FB profiles, or strengthen our privacy settings, or make a blanket rule that we do not answer incoming calls from unknown numbers. 

These are all digital detox remedies, to help filter and control the incoming traffic and select what we respond to and when we respond to it. But when we talk of ‘processing’ things, we need to understand that we are human beings, not machines. 

For us, the incoming words and the tables of numbers used in statistical data-rich reports mean something. As they mass up, they leave emotional residue. Our bodies register this as it accumulates and warn us, as much as they can. And our work timetables and the demands of our schedules means that we ignore and dismiss the warnings until we break down. 

ADHD needs to be recognised as an inadequate term for a real and complex problem. People showing symptoms of this can often learn ways to manage their lives better, and reduce the stress they feel. This can be done in quite simple ways: Packing a school bag or work briefcase the night before; making a rule that no food is kept more than one day after its first cooked; keeping your keys and wallet and reading glasses in a designated drawer close to the door so you know exactly where they are; sorting out all important ID documents and sealing them and keeping them only on one place for security; sorting out your clothes seasonally so the warm weather clothes and cool weather clothes are in separate sections; getting extra items like batteries and superglue and soap and toothpaste, and storing them in one cupboard instead of all over the place. Looking for things in a hurry is a very stressful experience. So becoming more organised relieves stress. 

Dealing with the cards we are dealt in life is always a lifelong activity. It’s always emotional. But it’s also physical, because sorting out the contents of our room and our home is connected to sorting out the contents of our minds. Deciding what to keep and what to throw out or give away is a very human thing, and it needs to be done, when you break down. 

Keep in mind that everything has a use by date. Read that again, as we are constantly being told on social media. Every THING has a use by date. So, for example, perfumes and body lotions become toxic after a time, and should be thrown out, and not applied onto our bodies. Food has a ‘best used before’ date for a reason, or we will find that we are harming ourselves by ingesting it. 

Scanning and approving our intake is what celebrity supermodels and actors model for us. We are so rushed that we haven’t been discerning about what we shovel into our bodies. We call it fuel, but we don’t care about the quality. Our fast-paced lives don’t allow us time to care. Yet that care and attention is the source of everything: it is the absolute core activity which adds value to our lives. Food. Drink. Sleep. Activity. Shelter and support - both physical and emotional solace. 

Let that sink in. Let. That. Sink. In.

Changing Workplace Culture By Embracing Equity

Image Credit: https://www.ceo-review.com/embracing-equity-this-international-womens-day/

Two weeks ago, a complaint was made by Ms. Ishara Devendra, a journalist, about her workplace culture at ITN. Ms Devendra’s allegations, posted on her personal FB page, were that she had been subjected to continual harassment by a senior official at ITN, but that the organisation had taken no action to address the situation.

The day after she published her post on Facebook, a Press release was issued by the Federation of Media Employees’ Trade Unions in support of Ms. Devendra’s claims. It was reported that the Chairman of ITN had undertaken to ensure that a full investigation into the matter be conducted.

This is not an isolated incident. Only about 7% of incidents of workplace harassment are officially reported, in Sri Lanka. This is probably because of the realities of the gender-biased hierarchical structure of most corporations and organizations in the country. Women have only recently been admitted into the higher realms of corporate and governance, and few reach the upper levels of senior management. The accused perpetrators are often senior members of the corporations and institutions in which both parties work, and have senior status, and privileged position in the hierarchical structure in comparison to the women they are accused of harassing.

According to Gayani Ranasinghe, Consultant in Human Resource Management and Specialist in Labour Law, and International Consultant for the Gender & Economic Inclusion Group at IFC, sexual harassment is defined as “unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature, which makes a person feel offended, humiliated and/or intimidated.”

The tolerance extended to such conduct is formed by company culture, which is set by the conduct of the leadership cohort. Women who seek professional success in the corporate world enter an environment in which they are a minority. One only has to view the proportional representation of men and women on company photographs to see how few women are visible at senior management level.

In this case, Ms Devendra is described as a senior journalist, with a professional record of 15 years of work as a journalist at ITN. So her claims cannot be easily dismissed. And in her public post she comments not only on the unacceptable conduct of the individual perpetrator of harassment against her, but on the culture created within the institution which enabled this conduct to take place, and be normalized. Her challenge therefore invites an inquiry into the cases of other women who have experienced similar treatment, but have not spoken publicly.

Chairperson of Jetwing Travels, Shiromal Cooray, who shared Ms. Devendra’s post on her own FB Platform on April 23rd, stated when sharing it that it is up to men to upgrade their attitudes and conduct towards women. Her framework text for the post states: 

‘This is the story of many females who dream of being a working woman! Not all women are emotionally strong or have the family connections or the financial independence or a support group to call out these “pests”, have them removed from the system, and carry on.
Very often, as in this case it is the unfortunate victim who is forced to remove herself from the system, with permanent scars!

This is a universal issue, but in Sri Lanka, often women are not empowered to stand up for themselves as the fear lingers - if they do, they will be victimized and forced out!
My humble plea to all men who have mothers, sisters, wives and daughters: please respect women and treat them as an equal with dignity!’

Sexual harassment is defined as unwanted and unwelcome sexual attention. The problem is that what is seen as unproblematic by the perpetrator is not seen as such by the person who experiences it. The perpetrator either consciously or unconsciously minimizes the seriousness and offensiveness of their own behaviour. This is why the test to determine if an offence has been committed in the area of sexual harassment is a subjective test. The perpetrator’s intention is not considered as a defence for their conduct and its impact because their intention is often questionable. The effect on the injured party is the core of the matter, and is the determining factor, in cases of sexual harassment.

Gayani Ranasinghe comments that:
‘One important way to foster respectful workplaces is to take a survivor-centered approach when complaints are made... This seeks to encourage people experiencing sexual harassment to come forward and seek support because they know they can expect their company to take their experience seriously, and respond to it ethically and fairly... The three key principles in the survivor-vectored approach are: Respect, Confidentiality and Safety, all expressed in a context of Non-Discrimination, which ensures equal right for all to the best possible assistance, without unfair discrimination.’

Because of the sociocultural stigma imposed on women’s sexuality and the societal controls over their conduct, many women who are in situations where they should complain do not want to name the conduct for what it is. Professor Arosha Adikaram of the Department of Human Resources Management, Faculty of Management and Finance at the University of Colombo, commented on this ‘Non-labeling of sexual harassment by Sri Lankan working women’ in the Personnel Review, Vol. 45, Issue 5, pages 969-987: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Arosha-Adikaram/publication/305736042_Unwanted_and_bad_but_not_sexual_Non-labelling_of_sexual_harassment_by_Sri_Lankan_working_women/links/6110ac800c2bfa282a2f809e/Unwanted-and-bad-but-not-sexual-Non-labelling-of-sexual-harassment-by-Sri-Lankan-working-women.pdf

Many Sri Lankan people do not actually understand what sexual harassment is. It is unwanted and unwelcome attention of a sexual kind. Many people believe all women secretly want admiration and attention from every quarter. And many perpetrators actually seem to believe that a woman who is being harassed should see it as a compliment - that the target of this offensive behaviour should feel flattered! Others assume the woman targeted must herself have behaved provocatively, to prompt such behaviour. Still others think women who speak out are trying to ‘get a pay day’ by making baseless accusations and ruining the reputation of a powerful man.

All these above assumptions and outcomes emerge from sociocultural attitudes of underlying disrespect towards women, which are unfortunately reflected in patriarchal society as a whole. And these assumptions are problematic because those in decision-making capacities, in situations like this one, make decisions informed by their underlying beliefs and assumptions, and act on them.

Any complaint which is made to challenge such thinking, and the actions which are prompted by them, takes place in a culture which has normalized inequality, and in which the complainant finds herself from the outset in an adversarial setting. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/PR-03-2022-0201/full/html

The hostile work environment for the victim of harassment is often not even recognised, let alone challenged. The normal complaints process followed in corporate settings involves a Disciplinary Procedure: a Preliminary Investigation to determine the validity of the charges, and the provision of evidence by the target of the harassment. Then the accused is required to give reasons for their conduct, which - after investigation - are accepted or disputed.

In cases of sexual harassment, the conduct itself does not occur in public office areas in the presence of witnesses. The perpetrators often commit offenses such as engaging in suggestive speech, initiating intimate body contact, and forcing unwanted physical proximity in private settings and behind closed office doors. It is obviously difficult, therefore, to gather evidence of improper conduct in such contexts. However, a person who is subjected to ongoing harassment today can record both audio and video evidence of such speech and actions on a technologically-enabled smartphone. CCTV cameras are usually only fitted in the Lobby and Reception areas of corporate buildings. Sri Lankan women have shown in recent years that they are prepared to share such evidence in social media public forums. Why should the identities of the perpetrators be protected?

It would seem obvious, given the severe reputational damage that inquiry into such conduct brings with it to the victim, that the perpetrators of this behaviour need to be more strictly held to account. Many senior executives in corporate and governance roles believe themselves to be unassailable at the top of the organizational hierarchy, and thus above reproach and ‘untouchable’ by law or protocol enforcers.

Ironically, in line with the high prevalence of narcissistic traits in the profiles of CEOs, CFOs and MDs, such individuals clearly feel they are entitled to expect attention and admiration from the women who work with them, who they see as very ‘touchable’, and accessible, because they believe them to be defenseless. Indeed, the systemically enforced and reinforced subordinate status of the targeted women enhances their attractiveness in the eyes of such a perpetrator. It’s a grossly feudal, ‘droits de seigneur’ attitude that has flourished in patriarchal societies in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 2023, in Sri Lanka, 75 years since Independence, it is time that attitude evolved.

There are two kinds of complaint in the sexual harassment area: ‘Quid Pro Quo’, where the targeted woman is coerced and threatened into exchanging sexual favors for professional advancement, or even for maintenance of her current employment status, and threatened with dismissal; and ‘Hostile Work Environment’, where she is openly bullied, belittled or otherwise punished in front of her work peers for refusing to comply with repeated violations to her personal dignity.

If a person is found to have committed the alleged offenses against her, a survivor of such conduct may find her rights to justice further subverted or diminished by the perpetrator not being held to account by the company. A perpetrator may often be deemed by the company or organisation to be highly valuable to them, and their work performance and the revenue they bring to the company would be judged as more important than their moral or ethical conduct. So the complainant would be transferred to another department or section of the company, as if her conduct was the cause of this incident, or otherwise incentivized to leave. The damage to her reputation and professional career path would be dismissed as relatively insignificant.

The sexual harassment offence - if resolved internally - would usually not be listed on the perpetrator’s employment record. The HR departments of many companies do not do due diligence into past work performance and history when hiring new personnel, so perpetrators are free to offend in successive positions until their conduct escalates to the point where it cannot be overlooked or rationalized. A perpetrator in such an instance may be suspended, required to engage in rehabilitation of some kind prior to being re-employed, and even dismissed - but whatever the cost to them, the cost of their behaviour to the victims of it and the morale and culture of the company is always significant. Only if this cost is clearly and openly recognised as such, and seen as severe, by decision-makers and implementers of policy in the organisation, can positive change be implemented.

The best remedy for the kind of situation outlined in the ITN matter is to raise awareness of the damage that sexual harassment causes. Not only to the victim, but to the reputation of the perpetrator. The damage incurred by such predatory and abusive behaviour must constitute a deterrent to the abuser, and make them aware that conduct such as this is not only unjust, but unacceptable, and will be seen to be, and punished as, a serious offence. Their own reputation will suffer, as a result of their conduct. Only then will they be motivated to change it.

Companies wishing to create respectful workplaces, not just for show on International Women’s Day, but throughout the year, every year, can invest in preventative and pre-emptive training, via facilitating workshops on professional conduct and best practices for all their staff, including the senior executives. This way, all personnel in the company would be aware of not only their rights but their responsibilities in relation to each other and the work context in which they interact.
Those higher up in the hierarchy would be made aware of their limits; and those lower down would be aware of their protections.

The aim in implementing best practice policies is to promote the greater productivity of the company, by creating a more equitable and effective workplace environment, and supporting all parties in any workplace setting to enable colleagues to work effectively without blurring personal and professional boundaries, and without abusing the closeness generated by the workplace settings in which they conduct themselves. This includes both on-site and off-site workplace contexts: telework or remote work interactions, conferences, trainings, company-provided accommodation and transport, and all work-related communications, both real and virtual.

Best practice in corporate conduct would benefit from each individual in any workplace interaction conducting themselves transparently. To use a symbolic analogy: corporate and leadership spheres have for many years spoken of ‘transparency’ - yet how many CEOs, MDs or senior executives would agree to have glass walls constructed in their office, so that anyone walking past their office during a working day could see what they were doing, at any time? How many of these awarded individuals hold themselves accountable, when the system in which they operate rewards them for conduct which they see as an entitlement that comes with their high status within their organisation?

Metaphorically speaking, an ideal workplace culture would have glass walls as well as glass ceilings. Privacy concerns could be addressed by stating that people’s private lives should be conducted off the premises, and not in the workplace. As companies work to meet deadlines on their assignments and projects, it is common for colleagues to work long hours together in close proximity. This is why clear boundaries and transparent conduct in the workplace are so important. Transparency brings with it mutual protection, clearly showing that the conduct of all concerned is beyond reproach.

Ms. Devendra in her FB post said that she had left the company that ignored her request for workplace justice, in order to protect her self respect. Self respect for a dedicated, competent and successful professional woman should be enhanced by her ambition and her ability to progress in her capacity, and such a woman should be able to be proud of the work she does in a workplace, not damaged by it. To do that, we must consciously create respectful workplaces in Sri Lanka  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BbjrnixB2hH2PGpoO0pB1WaRmzV_fDsS/view

On a global level, this year, the motto for IWD
International Women's Day 2023 is: #EmbraceEquity. The mission statement urges us to ‘Imagine a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.’ And to progress from that vision to action: ‘Celebrate women’s achievement. Raise awareness about discrimination. Take action to drive gender parity.’

This ITN case is not a one off. The workplace injustices it highlights are a showcase of the harassment that women routinely experience in many companies in Sri Lanka, and it is therefore an opportunity to act positively: to admit, call out and change the underlying disrespect which many people in the professional sphere still feel towards women. The socio-cultural influences: the inherent assumptions of gender, race and caste superiority/inferiority, the normalized misogyny, the unchallenged apathy, the ignorance about what constitutes consent, the inability to understand the situations of our peers - are all aspects which can be re-evaluated. From our beliefs flow our actions.

If we start with a positive vision of how we wish to operate, we can create the infrastructure to enable it. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2322093720934580?journalCode=hrma

The kind of conduct which comes to our attention in sexual harassment cases cripples companies and limits and restricts their viability and effectiveness, as well as the personal happiness and productivity of their personnel. Time to upgrade across the board - across every Board - to a best practices-driven corporate and governance culture. #GrowSriLanka!

Unwanted Attention

On April 23rd, a Facebook post was shared by Shiromal Cooray which drew public attention to an incident of sexual harassment.

Ms Shiromal Cooray, Chairman and Managing Director of Jetwing Travels and Jetwing Hotels, used her substantial FB platform to raise public awareness of a complaint made by Ms. Ishara Devendra about her workplace at ITN. Ms Devendra’s allegations, posted on her personal FB page, were that she had been subjected to continual harassment by a senior official at ITN, but that the organisation had taken no action to address the situation.

The next day, a Press release was issued by the Federation of Media Employees’ Trade Unions in support of Ms. Devendra’s claims. The DM reported that the Chairman of ITN had instructed that a full investigation be conducted. To do this, an External Inquiring Officer had to be selected, in order for the Inquiry to proceed objectively, justly, and without personal bias towards the parties involved.

The facts of the matter are not public, and will not be known beyond what the target of the harassment chose to share on her personal page, until the matter is resolved. But the support that Ms. Devendra has invoked from the public is likely to make this a landmark case in the area of sexual harassment claims in SL. Because - although the conduct this incident highlights is widespread - the claims made by those targeted by such behaviour in the workplace rarely reach public awareness.

This is probably because the accused perpetrators are often senior members of the corporations and institutions in which both parties work, and have senior status, and privileged position in the hierarchical structure in comparison to the women they are accused of harassing. The power differential alone makes it unlikely that anyone in HR or any internal complaints section of an organisation would act to question the authority or conduct of a senior official, if they were accused of questionable conduct.

Many of the people employed in HR are women, but they are women who are granted authority by the patriarchal organisation which employs them, and they are far more likely to dismiss, downplay or negate the claims of harassment that are made to them than to seek to uphold and respect the dignity of the victim.

Added to this is company culture, which is set by the conduct of the leadership cohort. Women who seek professional success in the corporate world enter an environment in which they are a minority, and in which the prevailing odds are against them. They are judged by their physical appearance and their attractiveness, rather than the quality of their work, and they are expected to accept whatever form of attention is directed at them.

Ms Devendra is described as a senior journalist, with a professional record of 15 years of work as a journalist at ITN. So her claims cannot be easily dismissed. And they are not restricted to the individual himself, who is protected by anonymity at this stage of the Inquiry, but to the workplace culture of the whole organisation. In this sense, this case opens the unspoken and unheard cases of other women who have experienced similar treatment to public scrutiny.

The danger here is that ITN will be scapegoated, and this incident will be described as a ‘one off’ when in fact many organizations and institutions see this kind of power abuse going on routinely within their structures, and no action has been taken by them.

Chairperson Shiromal Cooray stated in her FB framing message when she shared Ms. Devendra’s post, that it is up to men to upgrade their attitudes and conduct towards women: ‘My humble plea to all men who have mothers, sisters, wives and daughters: please respect women and treat them as an equal with dignity!’

Sexual harassment is defined as unwanted and unwelcome sexual attention. The problem is that what is seen as ‘welcome’ and positive and affirming by the perpetrator is not seen as such by the person who experiences it. This could be because of their ignorance of what constitutes consent, and of the fact that breaching or acting without the clear consent of the other party is an offence in the eyes of the law. And as such, such conduct has serious consequences to the perpetrator.

Companies comply with professional standards and prevailing feminist policies by developing Protocols and Mission Statements. And by releasing videos showcasing their few successful female senior Executives on International Women’s Day. But when it comes to implementing these policies, those tasked with their implementation within an institution often fail to enforce the Policy in any meaningful way. This case could be the exception to that rule, and act as a deterrent to those engaging in such conduct in future.

Public perception of harassment shows ignorance of its seriousness. Many people actually believe that being harassed is a sign that the person targeted is being singled out because she is attractive or desirable - so she should be flattered! Others assume she must have behaved in an immodest or brazen way, to welcome such behaviour. Still others think she is trying to enrich herself by making baseless accusations against a rich and powerful man. Very rarely is the offender taken to account publicly. He is often a family man, with a lot of social capital, and a lot of social influence. If he is deemed to be an asset, performing well in his professional role in the company, the company or organisation will side with him, and the victim of his conduct will be incentivized to be silent, or leave the company herself: either negatively by threats and intimidation, or positively, with financial settlements which reduce reputational damage.

All these above assumptions and outcomes are rooted in disrespect towards women, which is unfortunately reflected in the society as a whole, and also globally. And these assumptions are problematic because those in decision-making capacities, in situations like this one, make decisions informed by their underlying beliefs and assumptions, and act on them.

The stigma which is imposed onto a woman who is the subject of unwanted attention in the workplace affects not only her personal reputation, but her standing with her own family and her friends and associates. She risks a great deal to speak out against her perpetrator, for an uncertain positive outcome.

As long as senior officials and those in positions of authority in Sri Lanka’s major companies are ignorant or uncaring of what constitutes harassment, its causes cannot be addressed, and its impact cannot be remedied. As long as such conduct is condoned by internalized misogyny on the part of both men and women in the corporate and governance spheres, the demoralization caused by this unacceptable behaviour continues.

Why should senior women in corporate and governance positions have to request that men conduct themselves properly in the workplace? Many women enter the workforce against the wishes of their traditional families, with determination to challenge themselves and engage in personal and professional development, thus bringing benefit to the country as a whole. Should they be discouraged from doing so, by the conduct of their senior management and those in authority over them?

Workplace Equity means respecting the dignity of all colleagues. It should not just be words on a placard in the Entrance Lobby where the CCTV cameras are. It should be practised across the Board in every department of every company.

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